Avenging Angels
by EmeraldSnakes
Summary: There is Heaven and there is Hell. There is Niflheim, so what is Ianto doing there? Warnings and Spoilers at the beginning.


**Title: Avenging Angels  
Author: Emerald Snakes  
Characters/Pairing: Ianto, Owen, Tosh  
Fandom/Prompt: Torchwood - Prompt #38  
Spoilers/Warnings: Children of Earth. Kinda a dark fic  
Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood.  
Note: Posted for the ****consci_fan_mo**** on LJ**

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_Covered in dirt and mud  
Aching and spitting blood  
Cursing you stir to rise and groan  
muffled and yet to come  
mutters a battle-drum  
Werewolves don't usually walk alone  
"Least of My Kind" by Michael Kelly_

Ianto woke to fire but no heat, burning but no pain and horror but no fear. His eyes burned with the hatred growing within him and as he got up and looked around himself he began to understand.

In his first year at Torchwood One he came across the file on a race of travelers called the Veltaena. Their religious beliefs included a third dimension of the afterlife where the wronged - those who died an unnecessary violent death - could seek vengeance. It was called Niflheim, with no connection to the Norse myth that he had been able to find, and Ianto was only marginally surprised to learn that the place was real.

"It's about time," a familiar voice snarked from behind. "We were beginning to think you'd actually survive him."

Ianto turned around and his spirits brightened at seeing Tosh and Owen. They were different though. They'd been here longer and the Hate had consumed them. Their eyes burned with an endless fire, the same fire that was growing ever stronger within Ianto.

"Him?"

"Jack Harkness," Tosh snarled and Ianto was taken aback by the viciousness of her voice and his own internal agreement of hate. When did he go from loving Jack to hating him, and why?

"I don't think I understand," he told them. He wanted to so that he could make the proper decision about everything.

Owen over exaggerated rolling his eyes, "Of course you don't Teaboy. It always took you too long to see what lurked behind Harkness and his actions. Actually, that only happened *after* you started sleeping with him."

"We'll show you," Tosh added, offering her hand.

Ianto decided to pretend he hadn't heard 'Teaboy' for now in favour of taking Tosh's hand. She smiled at him and led him through Niflheim. It was dark, everything was dark. He didn't know how Tosh knew where she was going because he couldn't see beyond her and Owen. But there was fire everywhere as well. They walked through it, were surrounded but it yet it shed absolutely no light.

Tosh stopped after what seemed like forever, "we're here," she announced.

Ianto frowned, "I don't see anything."

Owen snorted, "That's because you don't believe."

"I'm here, aren't I?" Ianto pointed out annoyed.

"It's not as simple," Tosh soothed. "You believe that it is pitch black around us and so that is all your eyes see. You have to believe there is an entire city around us in order for your eyes to adjust to the correct visual spectrum."

It made sense to Ianto except that at the same time it didn't. The human eye wasn't capable of such a thing. He looked between Tosh and Owen wondering if they were trying to pull one over him.

"How long did it take you?" he asked, directing the question at Owen because he figured that if it was true, Tosh would be the one more likely to believe.

Owen shrugged, "Don't know mate. It seemed like forever but there's no such thing as TIme here. Everything but existence and Hate are irrelevant."

Ianto shivered. What was left of his heart, the part that wasn't yet consumed by hate feared the inevitable outcome. When he was alive there'd been very little he actually hated, it wasn't in his nature. This place was going to change him, was already doing it and he couldn't decide if it was a good thing or not.

"We can wait," Tosh said softly, giving Owen a pointed look.

Owen grumbled but sat down and leaned back against nothing. Tosh sat beside him and leaned into him. The display of affection comforted him, especially when Owen wrapped his arm around Tosh as if Ianto wasn't even there.

**. . . . . . .**

It took Ianto the equivalent of two months to find within himself the belief it took in order to see. According to Tosh and Owen it hadn't taken him as long as Owen but Tosh still beat them out.

Niflheim was a never ending city of the finest luxury Ianto had ever seen. Buildings rose to limitless heights, black as can be. Everything was black, breathed in black flame from which the darkness came. It was breathtaking, beyond anything Ianto had ever imagined even after having heard all of Jack's stories. He noticed that things only gained colour when he was within a certain distance.

"We ready to go?" Tosh asked when she noticed Ianto looking around himself in awe.

"Go where?"

Tosh and Owen stood and Tosh pointed to an area just ahead of them. It was a hundred meters of devoid space save for a vertical swirling mass of rich colour that defied the darkness.

"Okay?" an eyebrow rose in curiosity.

"It's the Time Vortex," Tosh explained. "We're going to show you an event in time that should never have happened."

"We're going through the Time Vortex like this?" Ianto asked looking down at his unprotected body.

Owen smirked, "we're dead. A little TIme won't kill us."

"Ha. Ha." Ianto deadpanned before consenting.

Tosh did something Ianto didn't catch right before they entered the Vortex but whatever it was it landed them at the exact point in Time they wanted to be within seconds.

Ianto gasped in horror at the sight that greeted them. It was a blood bath of mass destruction. He'd never seen so much carnage before and it made his stomach roll...well, it would have if his body functioned as if it were alive. He though working for Torchwood had been bad, that Canary Wharf had been bad but this was ten times worse. This was an entire planet leveled and it's people brutally massacred, and for what?

As suddenly as they had appeared on the planet they were back in Niflheim.

"I don't completely understand."

"Jack Harkness," anger welled up in Ianto as Owen spoke. "We are dead because of him. Jack Harkness should have ceased to exist on the day he was killed traveling with the Timelord. He has warped Time, has changed it and dammit, he should have _known._ He killed us Ianto. John Hart would never have come to Torchwood if it weren't for him. Gray would never have killed Tosh. You would never have been led to your death at the hands of the 456."

"The 456 would still have come to Earth," Ianto argued though he didn't agree that Jack was the reason he was dead.

"Maybe, but you wouldn't have been involved. You wouldn't have lived past what happened with Lisa, we all know that."

Ianto looked around Niflheim, "Are we all here because of Jack?"

"No," a new voice replied. Ianto turned around his head to see a gorgeous blue humanoid male. "There are other Fixed Points like your former Captain, it's why Niflheim came into being. However he has caused the most trouble."

And Ianto completely understood that despite what he had once felt for Jack it was all wrong. Everything about Jack was wrong. No wonder the Doctor had abandoned him; no wonder his own daughter didn't want anything to do with him.

"What do we do?" Ianto asked.

He had the burning need to avenge himself and everyone else in Niflheim.

"Hello?" a young scared voice called out.

They traded mildly confused looks before heading towards the voice. It was a young boy and Ianto recognized him from the file he'd read on Jack's daughter Alice. Anger and Hate washed over him like a flood. How could Jack have killed his own grandson? The man was all talk about preparing the world and he saves them by killing his family?

Ianto stopped and grabbed the blue skinned man's arm. The fire was burning white hot in his eyes now, "whatever needs to be done, I'll do it. Jack Harkness needs to pay."


End file.
